Susan Best

Little is known about Susan Best beyond her work as a housemaid for President John Quincy Adams. On January 2, 1829, Adams recorded in his diary: “My wife was in excruciating pain the whole Night with inflammatory rhumatism— I was up between one and two in the Morning; and again at four— I then called up Susan the Housemaid.” At Adams’s urging, Susan woke the coachman John Kirk who went to fetch a doctor.¹ Several other housemaids worked in the White House, including John Kirk’s wife, Elizabeth Kirk, so the fact that Adams called for Susan first may indicate her important role in the household. 

On July 31, 1830, Susan married George Emmott in Alexandria, Virginia (then part of Washington, D.C.), which indicates she remained in Washington after Adams left the White House in 1829 to return to Quincy, Massachusetts.² In 1831, Adams returned to Washington to serve in the House of Representatives, and Susan once again worked as a housemaid for him and his wife, Louisa Catherine Adams. Susan stopped working for the Adams family in 1834 due to her declining health. On November 13, 1834, Adams recorded in his diary: “Susan Emmott who has lived several years with us as housemaid, and had lain sick several Months, till she was removed this day last Month, came back this day, quite recovered, though looking pale, and I settled her account according to her own Statements . . . and gave her a check on the U.S. Branch Bank for the balance due to her, and took her receipt.”³ Little else is known about Susan at this point.